Trials, tribulations, tales and titillations from a 40- something year old, Scot, determined to stave of his cultural and genetic destiny with sporadic efforts to attain Physical perfection impaired by unhelpful refueling strategies and familial responsibilities.

Monday, 27 February 2012

There's a family history and a bit of a yarn, as ever, associated with my history of Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) ownership, but this post is going to concentrate on the installation and use of the Garmin GSC10 Speed / Cadence Sensor on my bike.

I happen to own the Garmin FR60 sports-watch as a result of an entirely different need where I wanted to combine an HRM with a foot-pod for my jogging training - again, there's probably a reasonable blog, based on the decision making process I followed for that purchase, but the bike Speed / Cadence sensor wasn't actually a big part of it. Anyway, cutting to the chase, my fantastic family managed to slip the GSC10 into my Christmas stocking and I've been eager to give it a blast ever since.

It's a kind of strange looking device and if you ever try to get some web help for it, you'll probably find as I did that the way it gets attached to the bike frame isn't exactly obvious. Further to that, some of the product complaints about the design led me down the wrong path in installation.

Anyway, to make this blog entry as succinct as possible, check this out...

NOT how to fit the GSC10 to your bike

That's kind of how it comes out of the box, and web reviews of the product made mention of the slight wheel speed sensor and how the easiest of knocks might cause it to get entangled with the spokes... I was in a bit of a rush to get it installed and get out there, so I just thought - "yeah! that is a bit shit!". But there was a nagging doubt in my mind. "People who make products as good as Garmin, generally wouldn't out a product if it wasn't reliable, I've got something wrong..." The staggering inaccuracy of my first run was testament as to how wrong.

Compared to the Endomondo results using the GPS on my phone.

Double the disctance at twice the speed... you'd have to be happy with that... unless you knew it was total ballocks.

I've had to have a right good talking to myself about the 3 fundamental errors I've made here.

1. Rushed to the installation
2. Rushed the installation
3. Rushed away from the installation , without testing it... without even having a plan to test it!

The first big mistake - and it's an embarrassing one too! is that the bloody sensor arm shouldn't be pointing up in the air like some sort of phallic, tenement flat TV aeriel, it folds round the back of the frame to get protected by the frame from being bumped into the spokes... like...

Rotate the sensor arm around to protect it with bike frame

Doh!!! That's better!
On the accuracy thing, well I have 2 thoughts. One (less likely) is that the Speed sensor was also picking up the pedal magnet, thus giving more than one magnet pass per wheel revolution. The 2nd is that when I started turning the pedals and my watch said it had picked up the bike sensor without me needing to run the 'pair' operation - I assumed that it had picked up the right bike sensor and I didn't need to run the pair operation... you know what they say about 'Assume'... and there I am.. a great stonking ass!!

'Paired' them up just to be sure and went for a couple of short test rides along the road. FR60 now agrees with the Cateye Mity 8 - which is a perfectly good bike computer - that came with the bike. So, now I have my Heart rate, cadence and speed fully integrated... Workouts can be exported to Endomondo... but what I'm really looking for now is an ANT+ enabled phone, running Endomondo and talking to all my Garmin toys... that would be sweet... but for now, I'm a happy camper... Although I suppose I'd better get that chain oiled soon...

Monday, 20 February 2012

Well, back to the gym for a few wee tests just to get a feel for where we are.

Weight

84.5 kg

Expected result - must lose some weight

Treadmill Fit test (est VO2 max)

44.0

Great result! - m/c must be broken

O'Neill Rowing test

985m

Below Average - typical result though

60 second Press up test

41

Rubbish :-)

Disappointed with the Press-ups, but otherwise not too bad. I'm fairly sure the cardio-vascular truth lies somewhere between the treadmill test and the O'Neill one, but the strength result tells it's own story... That should be easy enough to improve upon though, seeing as those would have been the first press-ups I've done this year...

Friday, 17 February 2012

Just seeing how this looks. I got a Garmin FR60 with footpod, Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) and Bike Speed / Cadence Sensor package last year. The bike stuff is still in it's packet, but I think it could be a worthy training tool. Using Garmin Connect, which is the default online tool. Just now I'm really just trying to get a feel for how many calories the individual activities I have planned actually burn and how different cycling is from running in terms of heart rate. could it be that cycling will be a good solution to the problem of finding a low intensity but longer exercise time activity... Common sense would suggest that to b e true... Let's see how the Science works out

Wednesday, 15 February 2012

Well, it's been a while since I've thought much about fitness - arrival of a beautiful baby girl last year seemed to take over the entire house and if that wasn't enough the boy is now 4 and a total headbanger to boot... but enough of my excuses. What are we up to this year?

Having soundly won Challenge 40 with a 00:50:06 10km in Inverness - the highlights of which were watching Bruce MacGregor stumbling over the line in utter agony and John McFetrige's (55 min) claim that if he'd known I was only 5 minutes ahead, he'd have run faster. We moved onto Swim-Bike-Run in Nairn for 2011. Novice Triathalon was enough for us to gain the utmost respect for the big boy Triathletes. After being soundly thrashed, my excuse being one of equipment (Clapped out, weighs a ton, mountain bike Vs Lance Armstrong model Trek road racing bike) paled into insignificance as Finlay's wee sister (ok, she had a triathlon suit and something called a transition box) soundly cuffed us. 2012 brings us a new, bigger biking challenge. Finlay often talks about 'threads of performance' and if you're not prepared to organise your equipment to facilitate you reaching your potential, you get no sympathy (being married, it's an unfamiliar concept anyway!). But, he's right! If you're going to run with the big dogs, you need to play by the rules and learn your lessons. Fortunately, a work colleague just so happened to have a Bianchi (no, I'd never heard of it either) Italian, thoroughbred, road racing bike and assorted equipments for sale at a most reasonable price.

You can hardly rage against the gods when they're literally throwing Manna at your head, so I'm now the proud of owner of this wee beauty. It's a totally different ride from the mountain bike (actually I think I might post on the trials of buying a new bike for the technically minded, commitment-phobe) and I really should have taken it somewhere safe to at least get competent with it before endangering my life on the roads around Glasgow, but you really can get going on it too. I've circled up to East Kilbride and home one weekend and had a cracking 25km ride out through Waterfoot and up to the top of Newton Mearns before skiting (51km/h max speed recorded) home on a glorious downhill return leg.

On other matters, I haven't really changed my mind about the components of fitness I surmised in this post . I suppose I'll have to get more cycling specific - if only to get used to the idea of sitting on the barely blnted razor blade that passes for a seat saddle.